Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems are used in buildings, automobiles, and other environments to regulate environmental conditions such as temperature, humidity, airflow, and so on. Because typical HVAC systems are often comprised of a number of high energy consumption components, such as heating units, ventilation systems/architectures, air conditioners/cooling units, and so on, HVAC systems typically represent a large source of energy consumption. As such, many utility companies and consumers desire to reduce the amount of energy consumed by HVAC systems.
In some environments, a utility company will impose demand response schemes to encourage or force customers to reduce their consumption at certain times (e.g., times of day when there is typically a high demand for energy). For example, a utility company may increase the cost of energy during these times or imposing/adjusting a duty cycle for various appliances by switching off (and on) components of the system without regard to the thermostat controller. Thus, the HVAC system, or some component thereof, may be regularly shut off for some period of time (e.g., 10 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour) to reduce energy consumption. In this manner, energy consumption may be reduced, but the users of the HVAC system are subjected to a demand response scheme that does not take into account user preferences with respect to temperature, humidity, airflow, and other environmental factors.